


Before

by eclipsed_pendulum



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-23 17:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eclipsed_pendulum/pseuds/eclipsed_pendulum
Summary: Years before Future Edd goes back in the past to kill his past self, before Cola is outlawed as a drug, before Tom and Matt is sent to stop their friend, Red Army is testing the time machine that starts it all.Before his real name is lost in time, Tord decides to try it himself. Needless to say, it does not end well.





	

The Red Base is constantly moving, with soldiers everywhere. Whether they are eating, sleeping, or preparing for the next fight, there is never a dull moment. However, there was one corner of the base that the soldiers deliberately avoided. No one dared go near it, much less step foot inside. For this was where Red Leader kept his secret project. While there was rumors as to what it might be, none were acknowledged.

The only ones allowed in there was Red Leader himself, and his right-hand men, Paul and Patryk. But even they didn't dare speak as to the contents within the room. So most walk by it, eyeing it warily, only hearing the sounds of metal hitting the concrete floor and electricity cackling. 

Anyone who had been there before _The Incident™_  knew that their leader's mental health had taken a nosedive, and some feared what his mind produced under stress. While some thought that it might be a giant robot, others thought it might be a weapon. No one would predict that it was actually a time machine. 

Tord stood inside the room, holding a clipboard and pen in one hand, the device in the other, and red glasses were perched on the tip of his nose. Paul and Patryk stood off in a corner, each sharing a concerned look. Tord refused to disclose the motive behind his actions, and it set them on edge. The finished time machine was quite something, a handheld device about the size of an iPad. It has a yellow keyboard, a screen flashing green letters, and a large red button. The uses seemed obvious enough. 

Tord walked over to a corner, where there was a box. He pulled a cat out of it, one he found on the street. He needed something to test his time machine on, after all. It was a scrawny tortoiseshell, and Tord noticed Paul watching the cat with interest, so he rolled his eye, "You can keep it, if it survives."

A silence fell over the room. Perhaps he could've phrased his sentence better, but that wasn't his concerns. With a nod, Patryk and Paul walked over to one side of the room, and grabbed a table that had residing there. They dragged it to the center, and resumed their position in the corner of the room. Tord was grateful, but didn't show it, instead placing both the cat and the device on the table. He just needed the cat to press the button. 

Tord stepped back, watching the device and cat intensely. His pen tip hovered over the clipboard, ready to write everything that happened. 

Seconds blended into minutes and the cat didn't move towards the device. Tord sighed and walked forward, tucking the clipboard under his arm. He checked the screen again, and it was still the same. Return to this exact location in two minutes. The cat was staring at him, like it knows. Tord frowned at it, and placed its paw next to the red button. He gave it a look that said ' _do something_ '.

Before he could move back, the cat's paw slipped onto the button, and it let out a yowl of terror as blue light flooded the room, and static made everyone's hair stand up. Thunder cackled, and lightning rained down on the device, but both it and the cat seemed unharmed as they became engulfed with the light.

Tord had been writing everything furiously, his handwriting looking nothing more than scribbles. Paul had a hand raised up to his face to block the light, and Patryk had closed his eyes. The light faded, and their leader inspected the table thoroughly, using his left hand to rub at the wood, which was blackened, yet it didn't feel scorched. His robot arm didn't have sensors in it yet. Quite a shame. 

He wrote this down, and spun around, beaming at Paul and Patryk, "I think it was a success. The cat will be back in about two minutes."

However, it seemed like the sounds had drawn a small crowd, as all three could hear boots shuffling from the other side of the door. None dared move and console this group, however, they just waited for the results to return. 

And it did.

A portal opened up, making a somewhat irritating noise, and the cat and device seemed to be spat out of it. The cat was on edge, and it looked haunted, but they didn't care for that, they cared about the physical effects. It's heart rate was normal, and was conscious. The time travel device was also unharmed, and was seemingly ready to go again. A thought struck Tord, and he thought it over for a second. In that brief second, Paul and Patryk somehow looked even more concerned. Tord passed the cat to Paul, and the clipboard to Patryk. 

"Boss?" Paul mumbled, glancing uneasily between the cat and the clipboard. He wasn't-- was he?

"I'll try the device. I'm not going to risk one of my soldier's lives for my personal gain," Tord explained, grabbing the device and punching something into the yellow keyboard. Paul opened his mouth to ask what his leader meant by that, but no words came out, so he instead gave a silent nod. Tord gave a small smile, and gestured towards the screen, "If all goes well, I'll be back in two minutes. Don't wreck the base while I'm gone."

And so he pushed the button.

At first it was exciting, with the light consuming him, and Tord watched in amazement as Paul and Patryk faded to white. But he realized his mistake immediately after. He was falling through a white void, and for a while, all he could hear was static. But it quickly changed to bloodcurdling screams as his head exploded with pain. 

Millions, billions, perhaps trillions of different realities were forcing their way into his brain, digging into his head and leaving trenches, they all filled with vivid imagery and memories that weren't his. Wait-- they were his, but it wasn't-- His hands were brought up to his temple, as if it'd fight off the visions. But his robot arm suddenly was like fire, sparking and burning at his skin. 

He could feel himself yelling, the vibration in his throat, but he couldn't hear it, all he could hear was billions of voices, they were all talking at the same time and he curled into himself, moving his hands over his ears in a pitiful attempt to keep the sounds away. Tord's robot arm was still hot, and was lighting the nerves around his ears up with pain, but he didn't notice it. 

Tord's brain was like it was going to burst, and thousands of emotions ran through him, thousands of thoughts, thousands of memories. If his wildly beating heart didn't break his ribs, they'd probably break under his chest's constriction. He gasped for air, _he couldn't breathe, **he needed out--**_

The sound was loud in his ears again, he was going to escape, but the relief that washed over him was there for a moment, before his head met concrete, and his right-hand men dashed to his side. 

He stared up at them and his mind screamed, that no, _this wasn't right_ \-- _they were_ **_dead_** , and he recoiled away from their touch, scrambling away and his back being pressed up again the wall. Their mouths are moving, but all he can hear is the static, "How?"

Paul and Patryk looked confused, their eyebrows knitting together. When they spoke again, Tord could barely hear them, "How, what?"

"You're supposed to be dead!" Tord croaks out. Just speaking felt like someone rubbed sandpaper up his throat, and he coughs harshly, "You both died in a car crash! I was supposed to meet you but I..."

His voice trails off, and suddenly the pain radiating off his head hit him full force, and he clutches his it, his robot arm hanging uselessly at his side.  The words feel wrong on Tord's tongue, and he shakes his head furiously. Wait, why did he think they were dead? Last time he checked, they had been alive and perfectly fine, he sent them off to retrieve the robot for him.

"Boss, what are you talking about?" Paul is staring at him as if he had grown a second head. Patryk is nodding along to the other's words, but he isn't focusing on anything in particular. 

Tord is at loss for words as his mind contradicts itself. Paul was the one who was dead, he was a filthy _traitor_. He gives a quiet growl, but doesn't speak as the supposed traitor looks over his head, mumbling something to himself. Patryk was on Tord's other side, looking over Tord's robot arm. 

Patryk eventually stands up, and gives a vague gesture towards the door, "I have to grab my toolbox. I'll be back, alright?"

Paul gives a nod, but Tord's mind is racing, and he wants to order Patryk to stay. _Don't leave me with the traitor. He's going to **kill me**._ But Patryk's back is against him, and opens the door. Tord glimpses curious soldiers before it closes, and his memories are shuffled again. Why was there soldiers? The Red Base had been deserted for years-- he had been the only here, why is the lights on? Panic settles over him, and there's a brief moment where he forgets Paul's identity, and he flails before falling on his side. There was supposed to be no electricity, and he wants to shoot the lights out-- This stranger was here to assassinate him--

"Boss?"

Tord blinks, another reality is shoved into his mind and he instinctively checks his wrist. The device wasn't there-- He was supposed to go back and fix everything. Why is he _back_? His working hand fly back to his side, and he gropes at the air, trying to find his gun. But he finds nothing, and he jumps to his feet, he needed to _run_. 

Before he can take a step forward, the door opens again, and Patryk shuffles in, somehow looking even more confused. Tord's own panic turns to anger, and he practically growls, "Did you take it?"

"Take what?" Patryk asks, shooting looks with Paul. Neither of them understood what he had seen-- What he'd seen! It seems to draw Tord out of the other realities, and all of his emotions fizzle out. He just felt exhausted and empty. He sank back to the ground, trying to fight back the headache, both from stress and hitting his head on the floor. Not ideal. 

"What happened?" Patryk takes a step towards him, his moves planned, facial expression controlled. Tord couldn't help the twinge of guilt over the fact that they needed to take care of him. Any other day he would've gotten angry and snapped at them, but he couldn't find the energy in him. He considers telling them the truth, and he almost doesn't until he realizes that he's told them everything before. Hiding it from them would just make them more concerned. 

"What time is it?" 

"It's 1605. You had returned about three minutes ago," Paul replied, looking more relaxed and still trying to look over any wounds. 

Tord is staring at the clipboard, which had been abandoned in the corner. He needed to write it down. But the cat is standing near it, eyes wide and staring off into space. _Did the cat see all those realities too?_ Out of context, it might've been a rather ridiculous question, but if it was true, that means that his machine wasn't perfect. It would mean that it wasn't a once only thing, and he would have to pull apart the device and it's mechanisms apart to figure out what went wrong. That wouldn't be fun. He purposefully avoided the topic, instead pointing to the corner, "Yes. Can I have my clipboard?"

Paul turned to it, and rose to his feet. The sounds of his boots clicking against the concrete was much more louder in the silence. He hesitantly picked it up, looking at it as if it single-handedly burned his house, destroyed his crops, and brought on a thousand year winter. That may have been an exaggeration, but it got the point across. Paul strode back, and he looked reluctant to give it to Tord, but he did so anyway. 

Tord pulled the pen out from where it been clipped behind the board, and began to write like he was running out of time. And frankly, he was. He didn't know when his memories would be replaced, or if he would even survive the night. For all he knew, something could've happened to him while he was travelling. He wasn't ready to take the risk, and began to detail possible ideas as to why the machine might have malfunctioned, and how to fix it. Tord made checklists of all the items needed to make those fixes, and tried to write as decently as he could.

Patryk, who had been tinkering with the insides of Tord's robot arm, glanced over at the board and frowned, "Sir, might I ask what you're writing that for?"

"If I die, someone needs to complete this," Tord replies coolly, a little too nonchalantly for someone who could die. When he notices Patryk's eyebrows shooting up, he gave a dismissive wave of his hand, "I'm sure I'll be fine. This is just a precaution."

"Of course," Patryk replied uneasily after a moment of silence. Paul had walked over to him and was hovering. Tord considered writing down his experience, and gave a click of his tongue, deciding against it. He'd tell his right-hand men, and jot it down in his journal. 

Tord glanced over at the two. The thousands of memories lingered just behind his temple, never clearly surfacing. But they definitely gave him a new sense of appreciation for them and his army. His soldiers were sticking with his despite what happened after _The Incident™_. It was nice, with him sitting there, and Paul occasionally asking Patryk something about the mechanics of Tord's arm. 

"Would you like to know what happened?" Tord asked, setting the clipboard to his side. He regretted it immediately, as he wanted something to hold onto, but he didn't grab it again. Even with one eye, he was observant, and watched the expressions flicker across the other two's faces. 

Patryk gave a shrug, obviously trying to appear collected, though there was a certain stiffness to his shoulders. Paul didn't answer right away, instead squinting at him, as if thinking over the question in his head. But he eventually gave a nod, as if urging Tord along.

"At first, it was just white," Tord began, making sure to note their reactions, "But eventually I saw everything. Everything that was, would be, and could have been. Anything with a change, I saw. It could've been small changes, such as someone's hair colour being different. However, it could've been large changes, like someone not even existing."

"Are you sure you really saw those things? Maybe it was just paranoia..." Patryk's voice trailed off, and he didn't seem to believe his own words. 

Paul gave a small shake of his head, "He's our boss. I'm trusting him on this one."

Patryk didn't respond, instead focusing on his work. Tord took in a sharp breath, trying to make himself comfortable on the concrete. One of his legs had begun cramping, and his head still hurt. He wasn't complaining however, he'd been through worse-- _way worse_. 

The sound of the metal clinking together and mumbling slowly faded, and Tord's head started falling onto his shoulder. His eyelids flickered as he tried to fight off the exhaustion, and sometimes he would suddenly sit up straighter. Patryk would have to move closer to continue the repairs, but Tord didn't think about that. He just needed to stay awake.

But his body seemed to have other ideas, as he found himself falling into a fitful sleep full of memories that wasn't his and static. Hilariously, one of the only clear thoughts that Tord would remember from that dream would be him wondering if that cat was okay. 

One of the things Tord wouldn't remember however, is the fact that he now knew what was going to happen. Millions of versions of his life was laid out in his head, filling the trenches they caused.

He knew he would wake up, thinking he's in another reality and try to run. He knows he'd eventually fix the machine, make a handheld version of it, but he would never touch them. He knew that one day Tom would come crawling to him in desperation. He knew that, with Tom's help, he'd be able to tap into these memories at will. Matt would also join, looking for knowledge. With the two at his side, he'd learn to use these memories to his advantage, being able to predict various incidents before they happen. He knew Edd would refuse to join, as adamant as ever, and Tord would outlaw Cola as a warning. But Edd doesn't give in that easily, and he would steal the handheld device. He would give the original time machine to Tom and Matt, and send them to get their old friend back. He knew that through a series of events, that reality would be covered, and thus add another chain of memories to torment him.

But this was before all that. 

So he woke up. 

**Author's Note:**

> i literally had this idea for months?? only now do i actually write it out  
> cool beans


End file.
